


No Such Thing as a Good Man

by mahoumacaron



Series: Borderline!Oikawa AU [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Borderline Oikawa, Borderline Personality Disorder, Character Study, M/M, empathy deficient Oikawa, empathy deficient character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahoumacaron/pseuds/mahoumacaron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa Tooru is not a good man. </p><p>He goes to church every Sunday, helps old ladies cross the road and volunteers at a soup kitchen every other Thursday. He tutors underclassmen in math, science and English. He helps people carry heavy things, holds the door open an extra second longer, and pays it forward. </p><p>Yet still, Oikawa Tooru is not a good man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Such Thing as a Good Man

**Author's Note:**

> Eyy this is my first submission! (つ=w=)つ I've always hc'd Oikawa as borderline and/or empathy deficient nd is2g there are not enough fics of borderline Oikawa smdh. I haven't written in a while so I might be a bit rusty, but hopefully you still enjoy! (=w=)/)

                Oikawa Tooru is not a good man.

                He goes to church every Sunday, helps old ladies cross the road and volunteers at a soup kitchen every other Thursday. He tutors underclassmen in math, science and English. He helps people carry heavy things, holds the door open an extra second longer, and pays it forward.

                Yet still, Oikawa Tooru is not a good man.

                See, the only reason that Oikawa did these things was because he knew that if he didn’t there would be no backup for when he was himself. For when he could not feel empathy for other humans (all the time), for when he was jealous, vindictive, bitter, angry, and destructive (less often but still frequent). For that one time in high school he seduced his teacher into passing him, and then got the man fired all in the same breath. For the other time that he manipulated his middle school sweet heart into making her ask her uncle for free tickets to a game he wanted to go to, and then took Iwaizumi instead of her (he broke up with her that night, too). He was void of all that he had been told since childhood is what made humans, humans.

                Empathy.

                Which is why Oikawa Tooru was not a good man. Because if he could not, did not, and would not experience something that made humans humans, then Oikawa was no man. What he was, he was not sure. But clearly it wasn’t human. Perhaps that’s why aliens intrigued him so much. Especially the ones that appeared human in physical nature, but not at all in thought process. Because, he was the same.

                Oikawa did not know why he had to go to church every Sunday, didn’t see a purpose in believing in a higher power that couldn’t even make him holistically human. He only helped the ladies cross the road because it would be a nuisance to have to clean up if they got hit. He volunteered and tutored for similar reasons; they both benefited himself in the end. One gave him letters of volunteering to sway his GPA, the other gave him college credit.

                In the end, Oikawa couldn’t even care about the people that he cared about. Case in point: Iwaizumi Hajime. His best friend since childhood had known him since he was, well, a child. Since before he had been scolded for not wanting to or knowing how to apologize when he pushed someone off the jungle gym. Since before Oikawa realized he was different, since before Oikawa started smiling brightly for anyone and everyone. His smiles never reached his eyes.

                Even since before Oikawa developed a love for aliens.

                Iwaizumi watched as Oikawa manipulated, invalidated and mentally tormented people left and right. Watching his best friend try his hardest simply to blend in with humanity, and yet it appeared as if he never tried at all.

                Iwaizumi had always been overly empathetic. If he watched a kid fall down on the playground he would scratch his knee as if he felt the fresh burn of torn skin on gravel himself. If a girl cried when Oikawa politely (sickly sweetly, full of fake sugary smiles and non-apologetic apologies) turned her down, Iwaizumi would wipe at his cheek and say that the lingering wetness was just his allergies, Shittykawa.

                Perhaps that’s why they got along so well. Cosmically. Emotionally. They balanced each other out. Anytime someone was taking advantage of Iwaizumi, whether at school, work or in his personal life, Oikawa was able to sniff it out from a mile away. After all, that was the game that he played best, himself. And if Oikawa was being too saccharine smiles, if his eyes creased too much in an attempt to hide his murderous intent and lack of empathetic reasoning, then Iwaizumi was the emotional voice that Oikawa needed in order to calm himself.

                It was as if Iwaizumi was Oikawa’s moral compass. Oikawa found it funny that the God he praised every Sunday (and only for that one hour every Sunday, never any other time) would make such a kind man do the job for him, instead of just making Oikawa a functioning individual. Because Iwaizumi suffered being around Oikawa. Oikawa knew it. He saw it in his eyes, the way they muddled anytime Oikawa couldn’t express real empathy. The way his nose wrinkled whenever Oikawa got his sweet, planned, torturous revenge on someone that he wanted to suffer. The way his stomach “hurt” every night that Oikawa came home drunk, high or a mixture of both. Oikawa wondered if Iwaizumi avoided him when he was like that because Oikawa was so raw, so honest. Did not lie about how much disdain he had for the world, about how slutty he thought the girls were that threw themselves at him and how emasculated the men were that envied his existence. He would rant about those that pissed him off the most.

                These inebriated rants almost always lead back to one specific topic. Iwaizumi.

                Oikawa would be a liar (which he is) if he tried and say that he didn’t hold a special kind of resentment for Iwaizumi (which he does) for being able to empathize as well as he does. Anytime they watch a sappy romance movie and Iwaizumi tenses up during the credits because he’s been crying and refuses to let Oikawa see (even though he already knows, always does). Anytime that Iwaizumi expresses concern for anyone that isn’t Oikawa (it doesn’t infuriate Oikawa if it’s for him, only for him) in a way that has him picking at his nails or tearing at loose threads on his ratty sweaters.

                Oikawa hates him for it. Iwaizumi knows that he does. The two of them live this routine life willingly and consentingly. Iwaizumi would never get mad at Oikawa for not being able to feel empathy because there are some days where Iwaizumi wishes that the roles were reversed and that he didn’t feel anything for anyone. Because as okay as he is with Oikawa not loving anyone, romantically, platonically, familial-ly or otherwise, it still hurts to watch Oikawa. Some days more than others. Some days, Iwaizumi deemed them his “low” days, his days where his empathy is at an all-time low, where he will say anything and do nothing to fix the damage that it does.

Because he knows that Iwaizumi loves him, is in love with him. Knows that Iwaizumi would never leave. Would never want to. Except, sometimes he does, because as much as he empathizes with Oikawa’s empathy deficiency, it still hurts. It still stings. Knowing that the person that you have dedicated your life to does not feel the same about you, does not feel anything at all.

Because sometimes Oikawa is an emotional tease, on his better days, on his days where he thinks that he can experience the closest that he’ll ever get to what “empathy” is. On days where Oikawa will compliment Iwaizumi, something beyond “thanks for not leaving me”, something that reaches his eyes, and when Oikawa plants a kiss on Iwaizumi’s temple, sweet and innocent and not _looking_ to emotionally torment, those are the days that are the hardest. The days that wear Iwaizumi down the most.

Because that is what Iwaizumi dreams of every night, dreads to wake up to the opposite every morning. Because Iwaizumi loves Oikawa no matter what, loves his personality, his humor, his soul, his introspection, his ability to dissect people honestly and holistically and unbiasedly, his intelligence, how far he will go in life, his days where he feels nothing and spouts off every single obnoxiously empathetic thing that Iwaizumi has ever done and then laughs about it because Iwaizumi is really such a fool. 

And there are some days where Oikawa lays in his bed and beats himself up. They are few and far between, but they happen. Because Iwaizumi has only ever wished for the best for Oikawa. Only ever _given_ the best to Oikawa. Oikawa will sit there and wonder why he can’t just feel something, _anything,_ oh God why can’t he just _feel_. He will get up, pace his room, run his hands frantically through his hair, scream, cry, punch a whole or two in his wall and debate on if he should punch one in his chest next. Because Iwaizumi is a fool. But he is a fool full of love, a love that should be shared with the world, spread across the lands far and wide.

But Oikawa is selfish, and Iwaizumi is convenient, and even if Oikawa can’t care about the people that he cares about, Iwaizumi says that he’s enough. And on some nights between the pills and the booze, never enough to die but always enough to damage (everything Oikawa does is enough to damage) Oikawa tries his damndest to believe those words. That he is enough. That he is not broken. That is not empty, or void, or a mass production error. That even though he only goes to church on Sundays, only works the soup kitchen on Thursdays and only helps old ladies across the street to benefit himself, to validate _himself_ , Oikawa Tooru is not a monster. Is struggling in a world where he lacks the basic element of human kinship and yet he strives. His coworkers love him, his barista knows his order by heart, looks forward to making it, his students are eager to learn from him and his roommate/childhood friend/emotional prisoner welcomes him home with a beer and a home cooked meal.

Where he is not a small child, swinging alone on the swing set, trying to understand what he doesn’t feel, what he doesn’t understand.

Where he is not an alien in human clothing. Where he is not faulty, or an empathetic malfunction. Where he is just himself. Just Oikawa Tooru. Just a man.

Oikawa Tooru is not a good man. But then, if someone as beautiful as Iwaizumi Hajime can put up with him, nurture him (to the best of his capability), _love_ him, then God. By God, Oikawa thinks that there’s no such thing. Because if someone as horrible as Oikawa is blessed with someone like Iwaizumi, then to hell with being a good man. To hell with it.


End file.
